Archive for April, 2017

Posted:

Comments:

Universal’s final figures for F. Gary Gray’s The Fate of the Furious. $532M worldwide debut, whipping Star Wars: TheForce Awakens‘ $529M. Broken out that’s $433.2M abroad, beating Jurassic World‘s $316.7M previous foreign record launch, and $98.8M. Thanks to Fate, Uni speeds past the billion mark at the international B.O., making it the second studio to reach that milestone in 2017. That’s 11 years in a row for Uni grossing $1 billion abroad, and it’s the second fastest in regards to getting there after 2015.

Broken franchise? Time to call it quits? Don’t think so, but again, the decline stateside just means that Uni has to worker harder to up the stakes part Fast and Furious 9. At $98.8M, it’s still the second best for the series after Furious 7‘s $147.1M, and the best opening for director Gray, star Charlize Theron and second best domestic opening for Vin Diesel and Dwayne Johnson.

If there’s any wonder why F8 is so big around the globe, it’s because Uni just crushed it in the social media aspect. Relish Mix ranks the top film franchises by social media universe size:

When it comes to social media, Universal, arguably more than any other studio, knows how to reach target demos on social media, and keep their interest: The Fast and the Furious series counts the largest social media universe of any film property with 2.18 billion according to Relish Mix across YouTube, Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook. Despicable Me 3 ranks third so far this year with 1.38B. Star Wars, which is holding its annual Star Wars Celebration fan convention currently, hasn’t even cracked a billion in its SMU which currently counts 967M.

Furthermore, Uni is blessed with one of the most vibrant and hardest-working social casts any major studio could wish for: Between Dwayne Johnson, Vin Diesel, Michelle Rodriguez, Ludacris and Jason Statham, the F8 cast reaches 412.8M people on social. Statham’s Instagram is adding 51K a day up to 10.6M total, Charlize Theron’s IG is adding 16k daily, and F8 newcomer Scott Eastwood is adding 8K per day. The Rock’s IG is clocking 152K new followers a day up to 83M total and Vin Diesel is also ticking 152K new IG followers daily, now totaling 35.9M. The official Fast & Furious Facebook page has been adding 40-50k new fans a day and is now well past 60M fans total. Hashtags #FastandFurious, #F8, #Fast8 are doubling daily activity from 5k, to 10k, to 20K following Thursday night previews and climbing.

Taking a page from the Cubby Broccoli textbook on brand partners, Castrol, one of the F8 promo partners, dropped a boosted social spot now with 1.1M views a day and 20.7M total featuring Rodriguez for EDGE Titanium Ice:

Even though Jeffrey Katzenberg has long left the DWA building, it’s great to see that the toon house hasn’t lost its sense of humor. Most of the animated movies that Katzenberg put his fingerprints on possessed a satirical sense of humor in the Airplane-sense of the word, going back to Disney’s Aladdin and continuing well beyond Shrek. Boss Baby‘s campaign continues to carry that comedic sensibility, and that’s paying off at the B.O.

Social Media monitor Relish Mix points out that in regards to online conversation for Boss Baby, “Baldwin’s performance of a know-it-all baby in a suit comes at a very opportune time. Convo confirms that his portrayal of President Trump on SNL, now coupled with his iconic voice as a Boss Baby speaks to parental moviegoers. Couple this casting/portrayal with DreamWorks Animation’s social reach – and automatic access to millions of kids’ eyeballs, and the campaign was off and running early, with millions and millions of views for the teaser and other quick clips posted to DWA’s YouTube channel.”

The teaser trailer for Boss Baby debuted online on Oct. 17th, and in theaters Nov. 4th with Trolls, becomingthe best-performing trailer online in DWA’s history at over 100M Views. The full trailer followed online in sync with the opening of Rogue One and at 71M, it charted the second-highest performing trailer online in DWA’s history. On top of these social strengths came Jimmy Kimmel’s activation (he stars in the film as the baby’s father) with the late-night talk show host interviewing an animated-version of Baldwin’s baby. Over the last four days, that bit has earned 3.1M views on Facebook. RelishMix is gobsmacked by the size of Boss Baby‘s social media universe which counts 344.3M, well above last year’s average for a family-animated films (263M). “It is a little unusual for a film to be without an official Twitter and Instagram page, but, DreamWorks Animation has completely rolled over their official feeds on TW and IG to promote Boss Baby with a sizable social reach (7.9M),” reports RelishMix. Pic’s videos are going viral at a rate of 13:1 which is higher than the average for the genre last year (9:1).

RelishMix sharply observed that the film was challenged by an overall non-social and inactive cast. Even though Johansson doesn’t shy away from PR when it comes to her movies, there’s a wasted opportunity here in regards to her absence from social. This is an actress who is a millennial pin-up girl, beloved by males and she’s not meeting that audience head-on with a Dwayne Johnson promo sensibility.